Complete membership application on first page of association section and send dues to:

GTA, Membership Secretary/Treasurer

Holly Zerwig

P.O. Box 613

Metter, GA 30439

CORRESPONDENCE SECRETARY’S REPORT

As I write this, it’s already the second day of the trapping season. Some folks are probably out checking traps this morning. Fifty degrees, you don’t even need a jacket!

The organization I work for provides science training for teachers and science programs for students. Students in the seventh grade study Life Science (biology). Some of the state mandated objectives include learning about how organisms are classified, (i.e., kingdom, phylum, class, etc.) the relationship of organisms to their environment, and adaptations of organisms that help them survive.

I have developed a lesson using a beaver to illustrate and teach these objectives. The teachers call it “the beaver lesson” and look forward to scheduling each year. Needless to say teachers, students and administrators get very excited and start breaking out the cell phones and other cameras to take pictures of something they’ve never seen before and may never see again!

What I’d like to do is make this lesson available to my colleagues in other parts of the state, and of course they’d need a source for beavers, and that’s where you come in. Our organization has centers in Rome, Barnesville, Cochran, Swainsboro, Warner Robins, Dalton, Cleveland, Winterville, Grantville, Bainbridge, and Carrollton. If you live near one of these places and would like to provide beaver cuttings, skulls, castor and beavers for this lesson please contact me – cell (229) 886-8996.

Just so you know, students are always asking, “How did you catch the beaver?” So then I get to tell them about and show them a Conibear and a snare. We also talk openly and frankly about wildlife as a renewable resource, how beavers are not an endangered species, nuisance problems, etc.

So if you are interested in getting involved please contact me. Until next time, Good Trapping. — Steve Rainey